Dido et dux,” and so do Boston epicures. I’ll sell at private sales, not for hotels! I used to imagine myself supplying one of the large hotels and saw on the menu:

“Tame duck and apple sauce (from the famous ‘Breezy Meadows’ farm).” But I inquired of one of the proprietors what he would give, and “fifteen cents per pound for poultry dressed and delivered” gave me a combined attack of chills and hysterics.

Think of my chickens, from those prize hens (three dollars each)—my chickens, fed on eggs hard boiled, milk, Indian meal, cracked corn, sun-flower seed, oats, buckwheat, the best of bread, selling at fifteen cents per pound, and I to pay express charges! Is there, is there any “money in hens?”

To show how a child would revel in a little rational enjoyment on a farm, read this dear little poem of James Whitcomb Riley’s:

AT AUNTY’S HOUSE.

One time when we’s at aunty’s house—

’Way in the country—where

They’s ist but woods and pigs and cows,

An’ all’s outdoors and air!

An orchurd swing; an’ churry trees,